IEF/IGU First Ministeral Gas Forum, Wien 24 November

I would like to commend the International Energy Forum and the International Gas Union for putting this Ministerial together, and the government of Austria for hosting us.

Let me give you some facts about Norway, we are:

• the 5th largest exporter of oil
• the 3rd largest exporter of natural gas
• the 6th largest producer of hydrocarbons globally

Almost all our electricity production is clean hydro power. As these numbers reflects, we are a country blessed by a rich natural resource base.

The world today face a twin challenge in the energy sector, namely how to satisfy the growing global energy demand and at the same time tackle global warming.

These challenges have, as you all know, been on the top of the global agenda over the last years. Norway has for years aimed to be a leader in the global efforts to combat climate change and at the same time supply clean produced oil and gas to our customers. Thus, this global challenge is very pronounced to my country.

New investments and new solutions are critical to our thinking on how to retain our environmental profile and at the same time contribute to cover the global increase in energy demand. Key features of our strategy are to:

• speed up improvements in energy efficiency;
• further expand renewable energy production;
• supply clean and efficient produced oil and gas to the markets;
• speed up commercialization of the clean fossil fuel technology needed in the future

Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) is a key technology in this regard. We have strong focus on this technology in Norway, and we have more than 10 years experience with offshore CCS in our gas production. I would like to take the opportunity to thank the countries and companies around this table which do participate in the much needed efforts to make CCS a realistic abatement technology world wide as soon as possible.

It is important to recognize that natural gas has an attractive environmental profile among fossil fuels. And, as all analysis shows, fossil fuels will be essential to cover the growing energy demand globally in the decades to come.

Lastly, I will come with a prophecy: our discussion today will partly focus on the concepts of interdependence and independence. I strongly believe that independence is not a useful concept in our energy discussion. Independence is unrealistic, and all the talk about the concept makes it more difficult to get a more fruitful dialogue between energy producing and energy consuming countries. Our aim should be to develop a common understanding of the future world of energy. This will make all countries better able to make the right policy decisions when it comes to future energy supply and demand.

Establishing efficient markets is the best way to solve the global energy challenge. Competition between suppliers is one important feature by efficient markets. Norway is not a member of OPEC, and if any organization of gas producers with the aim to fix prices or export volumes should emerge, Norway will not participate in it.

By these words I will end my remarks, thank you.